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I’m late in posting, but this week has felt largely like a rehash of last week. It’s been pretty much run, bike, swim, snow, ice, slush, repeat.

To further the déjà vu, last Thursday’s tempo run was the same as the previous week–1 easy, 5 at 7:49 pace, 1 easy–with no evening workout. Friday was a cardio rest day, but I did strength training in the morning. Saturday I usually do an easy run for my morning workout, but was eager to get back in the pool to continue working the drills from this week’s swim class. After 45 minutes in the pool my stroke was feeling great, and I believe I also isolated the cause of my swimming endurance problem. It’s a minor detail, but it seems that I’m not actually inhaling in any meaningful way when I breathe. I’m not really sure what to do about it yet, but acceptance is the first step, right?

After Saturday’s swim I had a light lunch and then hit the trainer for my first aerobic-targeted workout on Trainer Road. It was 90 minutes of easy-ish spinning, and other than getting a bit saddle sore, it really wasn’t bad. I had some errands to run and a pile of laundry to do, so the rest of the afternoon was quickly consumed with that. I went to the Murder By Death concert Saturday evening with Long Run Buddy, which was super fun, but also had us out way too late. LRB had a 5K in the morning and I needed to get the Caveboy off to the airport and then bang out a 15-mile run. 5:30 AM came around much too early. For the run I planned to run a loop of Central Park, then cut west to the Hudson River path and run south, over the Brooklyn Bridge, and back home. It was the closest I could approximate the NYC Half course without the street closures, and I figured having the bridge climb at the end of the run would be a good challenge. Per my training schedule I was aiming for 8:30 pace, which was faster than I’d run any of my long runs so far, and 15 miles was the longest I had run since the Brooklyn Marathon back in November, so I was a teensy bitvery nervous about this one. I’d checked the weather the day before and it showed pretty perfect coditions–clear skies and a high of 40, so I threw on tights, a long sleeved race shirt, my Ice Breaker hoodie (love!), gloves, and my sunglasses and hopped on the subway to Central Park.

The park definitely felt colder than 40 degrees and the sky looked a bit ominous, but I was undaunted. I started out the run feeling great. I was light and fast and it was inconceivable I would ever get tired. My pace slowed on the Harlem Hills more than I would have liked—and I say “my pace slowed” and not “I slowed my pace” because I felt like I was still running fast. It’s just that I wasn’t. Still, I cruised down the back side of the hills and pushed through the rolling stretch that makes up the north west section of the loop. By the time I exited the park at Columbus Circle and headed for the Hudson River path it had started to snow and I was having to stay focused to maintain the 8:30’s. The river path is flat and I hoped that once I dialed the pace in it wouldn’t be too hard to maintain. Other than stopping for a few quick photo ops of the frozen Hudson I did manage to cruise along, roughly on pace. I knew I’d lose some time and momentum when I cut across the island to the bridge though, and predictably, the climb there felt hard. What I had not predicted was the ½” of snow that had fallen in the time it took me to get from Central Park to the bridge. The pedestrian section of the bridge is basically a wooden boardwalk, so in addition to dodging oblivious tourists taking selfies I was also slipping on every step. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see a concrete running surface as when I reached solid ground on the Brooklyn side. Happily, the downhill stretch (or proximity to home) gave me a second wind, and I was able to bring in the last couple of flat miles at 8:15’s. It was a welcome surprise when I checked the Garmin and saw my average pace was an 8:34. I arrived back home cold, chapped, and wind burned, and was grateful for a hot shower.

Photo Op.

I cleaned up, made lunch, and was feeling good until my digestive system suddenly decided to go on strike. I don’t think it had anything to do with the run necessarily—my stomach had felt fine the whole time I was out. I curled up on the couch for an hour, but I still had a bunch of chores to get done before I was back to work on Monday. Other than a headache and the tummy troubles I didn’t actually feel terrible, so I decided just to power through it as much as I could. Of course, the problem was that I needed to get some calories and hydration back into me, and that was proving to be a challenge. After several hours, lots of tea, and a couple of yogurt and kefir cocktails, I felt a bit better. I got the important stuff on my to-do list done and did manage to eat a small dinner without repercussions. I probably only ended up at net 500 calories on the day, if that, and went to bed at 9.

I woke up Monday morning tired, hungry, and fighting what I used to refer to in college as my “tired sore throat.” I would get it without fail if I pulled a couple of all-nighters during finals, and now it’s become my red flag that I’m overtraining and getting run down. Once again, I skipped my Monday morning strength training in favor of more sleep. Tuesday I felt much better and the 5×1000 intervals went off without a hitch, so I’m chalking up the Monday fail to lack of sleep and calories. We had yet another snow/freezing rain/regular rain event yesterday, so getting to swim class was a bit of a swim in itself. Class was mostly kick drills and one-arm pulling, which felt weird and awkward and I kept forgetting to breathe (more so than usual). Then I’d remember about the breathing when my lungs started screaming and completely forget that I was supposed to be paying attention to my arm position, which was unfortunate since that was the whole point of the awkward endeavor. This morning I upgraded myself to the medium lane and still ran into feet, so something must be working.

The good news about this weekend is that it was super productive. The bad news is that I was completely exhausted by Monday. I ended up with the schedule stacked against me last week, when I realized that I needed to squeeze in a strength training session with Kali the Destroyer. I ended up fitting that in on Thursday morning, which moved my tempo run to Friday. The strength training was great (doing the Jillian Michael sessions twice a week really are making me stronger), and I happy to wake up on Friday without much soreness. My scheduled tempo was 1 easy, 5 at 7:49, and 1 easy, which I got through without much drama. I had the Al Gordon 4-Miler in Prospect Park on Saturday, and I tried my best to channel the successful tempo to garner some enthusiasm for the race.

Al Gordon 4-Miler

I had signed up for the 4-miler when I came back from my stress fracture, mainly as an attempt to save myself from jumping right into training for the NYC Half. That (somewhat) worked, and I really had no goal in mind for the race other than to improve my corral for the half next month. I should probably explain for those uninitiated in the efficient machine that is New York Road Runners, that all of their races have starting corrals which are seeded by pace. The catch is that your pace group is based on the fastest average mile split logged in any race you’ve run with them, regardless of distance. I rarely race anything shorter than a 10K, and when I do, they’re usually social runs with friends when I’m not focused on time. I was currently in the 8:00 corral based on my last 10K, and was hoping to improve my start position a bit given the crowded field in the NYC Half. With that in mind, I dragged myself out of bed at 6 AM on Saturday morning and bundled up. It was 6 degrees out and, not wanting to spend too much time freezing in the corral, I got to the start only a few minutes before the gun. We were off, and I went into Bill Belichik Do-Your-Job mode—no drama, no whining, just hit my pace and get the job done. I still had a 14-mile long run to do on Sunday, so the idea was to run hard, but not plumb new depths of pain. I held 7:30’s on the flats, 8:00’s on the uphills, and tried to take it sub-7 on the downs when I could. I held off a side stitch with some very focused belly breathing for the last mile and finished in 30:23. It would have been nice to break 30 minutes, but I was happy with the effort, and it should move me up at least one or two corrals. After I finished, the Caveboy met me with a warm jacket and asked if the lake was completely frozen, at which point I realized that I had not taken in my surroundings in the least. How’s that for focus?

From Prospect I jumped on the train to Union Square and grabbed a cup of coffee while I waited for Jack Rabbit Sports to open. They were having their spring clearance sale and I was hoping to snag a tri race kit cheap. Long Run Buddy was meeting me there, and we both scored major deals. I was able to pick up two race kits, and I also found a pair of my favorite running shorts and a book on bike maintenance, all for $55. Win. While I was waiting for LRB to check out I checked my race results and discovered that I had finished 4th in my age group. Double win. We had a celebratory brunch and then Caveboy and I headed home to catch up on laundry and other life essentials. I had a bike session on the calendar as well, so after throwing in a load of running clothes I set up the bike and queued up an episode of Gilmore Girls. This was the first session of my base-building training plan on TrainerRoad, so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was hoping it wouldn’t be too brutal given the 14 mile long run the next day. “8-Minute Power Test” initially sounded pretty innocuous, but it turned out to be a pretty intense hour-long workout.

Trainer Road

TrainerRoad basically syncs your phone, iPad, or computer with your (Bluetooth-enabled) bike computer to give you a customized spin workout. It estimates virtual power based on your trainer model and gives you real time stats on your power output, showing you a green, yellow, or red zone depending on how well you’re keeping up with the designed workout. They also provide real-time on-screen instructions for each session, as well as additional background info on the website and even free webinars on training topics. I’ve heard really good things about it and given that I have zero experience with bike training, I am basically putting all my faith in their approach. The workout started with an easy spin warm-up, and then progressed to two very short, hard intervals. No matter what I did, I couldn’t keep my power up in the green zone where it was supposed to be, and I was starting to get very worried about my biking abilities and questioning why I had taken on this whole triathlon endeavor. Thankfully there was another easy spin period at that point and the on-screen instructions started describing the two 8-minute power trials that were coming up. It was then that I realized that point of this ride was to calibrate my functional threshold power, and that the green zone for power that the app was currently showing me was completely arbitrary (i.e. probably calibrated for a large dude who is a much better cyclist than me.) This is why I probably should not consider reading the instructions to be a sign of weakness… Anyway, I was at least somewhat relieved, and I got through the power tests within tolerable pain levels. TrainerRoad spit out a new FTP at the end, and my next workout should be calibrated for my current fitness level.

Slushy Central Park

Long Run

Sunday the temperature shot up 30 degrees into the mid-40’s, and it seemed all of New York was covered in 2 inches of accumulated slush, dirt, and formerly-frozen dog pee. I had originally planned to run as much as I could of the NYC Half course for my long run, but it was clear that traversing the sidewalks was not a desirable option. I figured Central Park was probably my best shot at clear roads, so I met up with LRB after his morning spin session and set off. He had a 1:45 run in HR Zone 1-2 on the menu, so it was much the same drill as last week. We ran a bit slower than my target 8:30’s, but my legs were feeling pretty dead after the strength/tempo/race/bike whammy anyway. We were both not wearing headphones for once, so we chatted on and off and the miles ticked by quickly. The encouraging part about this run was really how undramatic it was given how tired I felt. Undoubtedly it would have hurt a lot more had I been running 8:30’s instead of 8:45’s, but I did pick it up for the last few miles after LRB clocked out and my endurance felt solid.

Monday morning I had an hour of strength training scheduled, but on Sunday night I decided that I would benefit more from an additional hour of sleep. I had vague notions of still getting it in after work, but by mid-afternoon it was clear that what I really needed was rest and a massage. After some aggressive tiger tailing and an hour on the couch after dinner I was off to bed, and felt much more alive this morning. The intervals du jour were 2×1200 at 6:53 pace followed by 4×800 at 6:49 pace with 2 minute recovery intervals. After my poor showing last week, I was determined to bang these out without walking a recovery or stopping for a rest, and I. DID. IT. I downed half a power bar while waiting for the train after, which is part of my initiative to be nicer to myself about post-workout nutrition. (More on that in a later post.) Tonight is swim class, and the rest of the week is the usual combo of swimming, Trainer Road bike workouts, hard runs, and beet juice.

Last week was probably my most solid training week since my stress fracture, and I’m feeling pretty good about where I am. I ran 30.8 miles, biked 19.4, swam 1200 yds (that’s an estimate since I’m still struggling with lap count, but more on that later…), and I also got in two strength training sessions. Running-wise, I had my mile-repeats on Tuesday, an easy 6 on Thursday, and a 12-mile long run Sunday. Saturday I bricked my swim workout with another easy 6-mile run, which, happily, did actually feel easy. I’m still working to build my swim endurance, but my efficiency is improving and I’m definitely wasting less energy on my kick now.

Central Park, with not another person in sight…

For Sunday’s long run I met Long Run Buddy in Central Park, which we had nearly to ourselves, thanks to the 14 degree temperature and frigid wind gusts. We bundled up and decided a legitimate warm-up was in order. After a shuffley mile we picked up the pace for our park loops. LRB had a 90-minute easy run in HR Zone 1-2 on his schedule, so we ended up pulling back a bit on the 8:30 pace I was targeting and settled in around 8:40. At mile 10 LRB peeled off at 92nd street to wrap up his workout, and it was at that point that sucked on my water bottle in vain and discovered that the nozzle had completely frozen. I do love winter running and generally don’t really mind the cold, but that seemed a bit much. Consoling myself that I could always eat snow if necessary, I got ready to push up the Harlem Hills the second time. I was nervous curious about how I’d do on the hills, especially on loop two, but I felt pretty strong throughout. I was definitely not able to push the pace as much as I was in the fall, but I’m confident that I’ll get the uphill speed back with a some focused time and effort. In any case, I still felt good endurance-wise, and I was able to pick up the pace for the last two miles. I finished my 12 in the park and still had about mile back to LRB’s apartment, and in an effort to stay warm I opted to just jog it back. All-in, I ran 13.8, which makes me feel much better about my 14-er coming up this weekend. After a hot shower the feeling returned to my fingers and nose, and LRB and I hit up a beer hall for some post-run sustenance.

LRB’s liter o’beer and my teeny-tiny Riesling.

Monday I was off work for the holiday and logged a 45-minute strength training session, 8 miles of HIIT interval biking, 3 loads of laundry, and some marathon cooking. My running bras are clean and my freezer is well stocked, so that made me a happy girl. We had our wine critic friend over for dinner last night which resulted in more imbibing than was perhaps prudent, especially given this morning’s intervals. I hit the treadmill feeling a bit sluggish and fought my way through 10×400’s at 6:40 pace. It was not my most stellar performance and I had to take a couple of my recovery intervals at a walk, but I gritted my teeth and made it through the full set. In fact, I know that I made it through because I used my snazzy new counting bracelet, which I made yesterday to keep track of my pool laps.

10 beads on the left. Count ’em.

I got some great suggestions last week on how to keep count in the pool, but apparently I’m hopeless. I think the real problem is that I’m still concentrating so much on technique that I just don’t have the mental bandwidth for anything else. Right now, my thoughts during swimming go something like this: “1, 2, 3, breathe! Lead with the crown of your head! 3, breathe! Don’t push the water down! 2, 3, breathe! 1, 2, head down! Breathe! Straight legs! Relax! 3, breathe! Turn! Breathe! Crap, is this lap 11 or 13? Breathe!”

I was racking my brains all week trying to think of a low-tech solution, and I remembered that in my knitting travels I’d seen instructions for making row-counting bracelets. I dug around in my crafty bins and found some stainless steel beads, jump rings, and black cord and I was all set. I think the result looks moderately adult enough that I can wear it all day, and it worked beautifully for ticking off my intervals this morning. I’ll be trying it out in the pool tonight.

The general idea is that the cords are a bit longer than the beaded area, leaving a short gap. The beads will slide along the cord, leaving a space between the counted beads and the ones ‘on deck,’ but there’s enough friction that they don’t slide around on their own. I’ll put up a separate post this week with the materials I used for my bracelet, along with instructions and photos. It’s a fast project and these would make a useful gift for your favorite runner or swimmer. (Or knitter.) These could range from masculine to feminine, simple and elegant to colorful and fun depending on your choice of beads and hardware. The only real constraints are selecting beads and cord of compatible size, and making sure your materials will survive the water if you plan to swim with it. I tend to gravitate towards minimalism, but you could easily incorporate number and letter beads for a personal touch, too—names, inspiration, a mantra, or PR’s.

So I realized this morning that I really do have a place where everybody knows my name, and that place is Starbucks. I may need to consider taking a week off caffeine again soon.

It seems like everyone from Running Boston and Beyond to The Athletarian was writing about their mile repeats last week, and I had my first set in ages today. It was 3×1600 @ 6:59 (and that counts as sub-7, baby!), and it was brutal. Since my foot *seems* to be all-systems go, I switched my focus this week from the 4-miler on the 21st to the NYC Half in March. I’m still trying to gauge where my fitness is now, but it feels like the time off as cost me more endurance than speed. I need to come up with a training strategy and set some realistic goals for my spring races, so this weekend’s 10-miler was a big test. It was my first run longer than 7 miles since Thanksgiving, and I was targeting an 8:30 pace. I ran my usual to-, from-, and two laps of Prospect route and clocked in at 8:31’s, which was a HUGE confidence boost.
Before the stress fracture in the fall I was aiming for a 1:45 spring half, and based on the 10-miler and my miscalculated tempo the other day, I decided to proceed as planned. That’s ambitious for mid-March, as I only have four training weeks to get ready, but if the foot holds, I have my eye on the NYRR women’s half in April. I am ready to put in a lot of hard work, but I’ll be on high alert for any indications of overtraining or that my stress fracture acting up. Right now my plan is to continue with running only on my structured workout days and substitute biking and swimming on what would be easy days.

On the subject of Tri, I’ve christened my bike Tzippi and spent some quality trainer time with her this week, though I still haven’t gotten her calibrated with the pseudo power meter. I’m definitely lacking in bike training experience and I’ve been worried that I’m inadvertently spending a lot of time in the training black hole, so it will be good to get some real(ish) data soon. I am, however, loving my new Cat Eye Strada Smart. It’s fully Bluetooth, which means there are no wires to clip to the frame, and the workouts automatically sync with my phone. Now if only I could find a good method for counting swim laps I’d be all set. I generally count strokes/breaths and I find it impossible to maintain an accurate lap count in my head as well. I could try the old Garmin-in-ziploc-in-swimcap trick, which is probably what I’ll do for racing, but I’m not convinced of its accuracy over 25 yards. Does anyone have any good tips for keeping track? The best I’ve come up with so far is a poolside abacus, which seems less than ideal…

This was my first entry in my running log since November. Apparently it stretches the bar graph to fill the space available.

I had my first date with the treadmill this morning since before Thanksgiving, and it was glorious. I had 6×800’s at 3:43 pace scheduled, and I really had no idea whether I’d be able to handle it, both from a cardio standpoint as well as the questionable structural integrity of my foot. I ended up cutting it to 5 repeats instead of 6, as I decided not to exceed 4 miles including the warm up and down, but it felt great. I can feel the injury twinge a bit while I’m running, but my foot didn’t feel at all sore afterward, so I’m assuming I’m still in the safe zone and not setting back my recovery. I’m still a bit wary, though, as my foot strike seems a bit altered now (another reason for cutting the workout a bit short). I’ve always pronated more on my left side, and I suspect that may have been the cause of the injury in the first place. Now I seem to be pushing off my big toe more than the lesser ones, and I’m curious if the avoidance of pain may actually serve to correct my stride. Any slight alteration in gait changes biomechanics and alters the stress put on joints, muscles, and soft tissue, though, and I’ve learned the hard way to be ginger as my body adapts. More than once I’ve caused a more major injury by compensating for a minor one, and I definitely don’t need to compound this one.

But back to the intervals. It was amazing! The cardio felt fine the whole way through, and I definitely could have banged out the last repeat without any trouble. It was satisfyingly tiring in the way only a good speed workout is, and I felt properly worn out and hungry for the first time in weeks. I found myself wondering what the runners’ equivalent of smoking a cigarette after is…

In theory this week was going to be a cut back/mini-taper before the Dirt Dash in South Carolina this Saturday. Since it was an extra week that I added to the marathon training schedule, I planned just to wing it on workouts based on how I was feeling. Sunday I decided on a 16-miler, which seemed long enough to be hard, but not completely leg-deadening. Rather than doing my usual steady pace, even-split approach, I opted for a fast finish run, which I thought might get me primed for the half this week. I started out running 10 minute miles with the Caveboy, then dropped to around 9’s after about 5 miles, and mid-to-low 8’s for the last 4.

I finished the long run feeling great, and I headed into this week flush with optimism. I also happened to catch this article on Runners’ World this week on increasing training just before a taper, and I started getting ideas. Monday would normally have been an off day, but instead I decided to go for broke and scheduled a strength session. After 45 minutes with Gillian my legs and core were quivering and I was high on endorphins. I chased that workout with an easy 5 on Tuesday, and then decided this morning to squeeze in an interval workout. I now have two days of travel and enforced rest, and if you count the rest of today, it’s really almost 3 full days before the half.

I’m generally a worst-case-scenario type of person, but I’m feeling uncharacteristically optimistic about the Dirt Dash. I hadn’t planned to really race hard on Saturday, but once I got the runner instructions email this week, I realized two things:

1. This race is really small.

2. It is on an access road through the woods and swamp.

The course, on I’on Swamp Road. Yes, that is the actual name.

For some reason, that got me really excited. I know I’m completely in denial about the heat, humidity, and pterodactyl-sized mosquitos we will likely encounter. Still, the idea of just running through the woods sounds like a nice change from stampeding through Central Park with 4,000 other people and being pampered every step of the way by New York Road Runners’ fabulous volunteers. (Not that I’m knocking it.) I know I could totally melt down in the heat, and I may have pushed myself too hard this week to recover in time. Still, I feel like this is going to be fun.

I realized that I forgot to post my training schedule this week, so here it is:

Monday – Rest

Tuesday – Intervals: 5x1K @ 7:13 min/mi

Wednesday – XT/Easy run

Thursday – Tempo: 1 mi easy; 4 mi @ 8:09 min/mi; 1 mi easy

Friday – XT/Easy run

Saturday – Rest

Sunday – 20 mi @ 9:47 min/mi

I did do the intervals today, which were probably the toughest workout (at least mentally) that I’ve had yet. For one thing, 1K’s have always been a hard distance for me–they’re in that yicky no man’s land between an 800 and a mile, and I never have a good sense of just how long they are or when the next interval is going to be over. 5x1K’s seem particularly evil, since it’s like the pain of a fast 5K dragged out over a much longer time. (Although, put that way, it does seem like a fabulous training tool.) Anyway, the pace was not actually painful or unsustainable, but I felt like it must have put me physiologically right in my fight or flight zone. The only real description I can give is that it felt stressful in a reptile-brain, something’s-about-to-eat-me sort of way. I really wanted to stop, or at least slow down, but I was aware that although I was working hard, I definitely had it in me to finish. I tried to be Zen about it and just allow the discomfort to be there, which sort of worked. I got through it and I did feel a bit lighter when I would remind myself that I could hang out with the feelings while I just did what I needed to do. I’ll admit to a couple of 30-second walks during the recovery intervals, but I was upstairs (read: hot) at the gym, so all in all, I’d call it a win.

In other news, this weekend my Kindle suggested that I read Beyond Training by Ben Greenfield. I picked it up without really knowing anything about it, but so far I am very intrigued. It’s largely a manual of training hacks for endurance athletes that runs the gamut from how to incorporate strength training effectively, to using electrical muscle stimulation for faster recovery. I haven’t gotten to the nutrition section yet, but his training methods definitely take a primal approach and I’m expecting it to skew somewhat Paleo. I can’t comment on the validity of his approach yet, but the text provides extensive footnotes and references, and I’m looking forward to delving into the science. I’ll write a full review when I’ve finished it; in the meantime you can get a taste for Ben Greenfield’s methods from his podcast.